Johns Hopkins Commencement, Thursday, May 23

TO:                 Assignment editors, reporters

RE:                 Johns Hopkins University Commencement ceremony

WHEN:          Thursday, May 23, from 8:40 a.m. to approximately noon

WHERE:        Johns Hopkins University’s Homewood campus, Homewood Field, 3400 N. Charles St., Baltimore, Md. 21218

The 137^th academic year at The Johns Hopkins University has come to a close, and with that ending, new beginnings will be launched at a university-wide commencement ceremony on Thursday, May 23.

The media is invited to attend this rite of passage, as friends and family gather to watch students become graduates. The festivities honoring the class of 2013 will begin promptly at 8:40 a.m., rain or shine, with the procession of degree candidates from the university’s nine academic divisions onto Homewood Field. In caps and gowns adorned with colorful hoods indicating their fields of study, they will cross a stage to shake hands with university President Ronald J. Daniels as their names are read aloud. Most graduates will receive their diplomas following the event; others will receive them at separate diploma ceremonies at their respective schools.

The featured speaker will be Alfredo Quiñones-Hinojosa, a renowned neuroscientist and neurosurgeon at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. President Daniels will offer brief celebratory remarks.

This year’s honorary degree recipients are Eddie Brown, chairman and chief executive officer and founder of Brown Capital in Glen Arm, Md., and his wife C. Sylvia Brown, community philanthropist and higher education leader; Vernon Mountcastle, professor emeritus of neuroscience at Johns Hopkins; and Nelson Sewankambo, an internationally recognized medical researcher and educator from Kampala, Uganda.

About the Graduating Class (as of May 13)
The total number of earned degrees, certificates and diplomas awarded is expected to be about 7,185, including 1,758 bachelor degrees (1,332 of which to be conferred upon seniors graduating from the schools of Arts and Sciences and Engineering at the Homewood campus) and 5,424  graduate degrees from across the university: 1,295 from the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences; 1,076 from the Whiting School of Engineering; 547 from the Carey Business School; 579 from the School of Education; 203 from the Peabody Institute; 107 from the School of Nursing; 479  from the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS); 279 from the School of Medicine; and 859 from the Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Baltimore/Maryland Connections    

• Wes Moore, best-selling author, JHU alumnus and speaker at the School of Education diploma award ceremony at 7:30 p.m., Thursday, May 23
• Kenneth W. DeFontes Jr., president and chief executive officer of Baltimore Gas and Electric Company
• Eddie Brown, chairman and chief executive officer and founder of Brown Capital in Glen Arm, Md.
• C. Sylvia Brown, community philanthropist and higher education leader

A schedule of all the ceremonies, as well as greater detail about the university-wide ceremony is online at
http://releases.jhu.edu/2013/05/13/johns-hopkins-university-commencement-thursday-may-23-2/

Logistics for Members of the Media
Homewood Field is the stadium on the northern end of the university’s Homewood campus. There will be a press section on the playing surface of Homewood Field. Identification is required; prior notification of intention to cover the ceremony is preferred. See above for contact information.

Parking map
http://web.jhu.edu/commencement/map_parking.html

Commencement website
http://web.jhu.edu/commencement/index.html

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Johns Hopkins University news releases can be found on the World Wide Web at http://releases.jhu.edu/
Information on automatic E-mail delivery of science and medical news releases is available at the same address.

A team of students at the Johns Hopkins University’s Whiting School of Engineering has designed for NASA a new stethoscope that delivers accurate heart- and body-sounds to medics who are trying to assess astronauts’ health on long missions in noisy spacecraft.

Space is serene, because no air means no sound. But inside the average spacecraft, with its whirring fans, humming computers and buzzing instruments, is about as raucous as a party filled with laughing, talking people.

Johns Hopkins mechanical engineering students developed these components for a stethoscope that could do a better job of detecting heart sounds within a noisy space vessel. Photo: Will Kirk/homewoodphoto.jhu.edu

“Imagine trying to get a clear stethoscope signal in an environment like that, where the ambient noise contaminates the faint heart signal. That is the problem we set out to solve,” said Elyse Edwards, a senior from Issaquah, Wash., who teamed up on the project with fellow seniors Noah Dennis, a senior from New York City, and Shin Shin Cheng, from Sibu, Sarawak, Malaysia.

The students worked under the guidance of James West, a Johns Hopkins research professor in electrical and computer engineering and co-inventor of the electret microphone used in telephones and in almost 90 percent of the more than two billion microphones produced today.

Together, they developed a stethoscope that uses both electronic and mechanical strategies to help the device’s internal microphone pick up sounds that are clear and discernible – even in the noisy spacecraft, and even when the device is not placed perfectly correctly on the astronaut’s body.

“Considering that during long space missions, there is a pretty good chance an actual doctor won’t be on board, we thought it was important that the stethoscope did its job well, even when an amateur was the one using it,” Dennis said.

The project was developed during a two-semester mechanical engineering senior design course offered by the university’s Whiting School of Engineering. Teams of three or four undergraduates are each given a small budget to design and build a prototype requested by a sponsoring business or organization. This year’s results were unveiled recently at a showcase conducted shortly before the students were scheduled to graduate.

The device also includes many other performance-enhancing improvements, including low power consumption, rechargeable batteries, mechanical exclusion of ambient noise and a suction cup, so that it sticks firmly onto the patient’s chest, says Cheng.

Though developed for NASA’s use in outer space, this improved stethoscope could also be put to use here on Earth in combat situations, where ambient noise is abundant, and in developing countries, where medical care conditions are a bit more primitive.

West also plans to use the device to record infants’ heart and lung sounds in developing countries as part of a project that will attempt to develop a stethoscope that knows how to identify the typical wheezing and crackling breath sounds associated with common diseases. This would allow on-site medics to help make preliminary automated diagnoses.

Related links:
Whiting School of Engineering
Department of Mechanical Engineering

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Johns Hopkins University news releases can be found on the World Wide Web at http://www.jhu.edu/news_info/news/ Information on automatic E-mail delivery of science and medical news releases is available at the same address.

Johns Hopkins University President Ronald J. Daniels sent the following email message to students, faculty and staff today announcing his decision to seek an NCAA Division I conference affiliation for the university’s men’s lacrosse team.    

Dear Member of the Johns Hopkins Community:

In some circles, Johns Hopkins is known best for healing. In others, we are recognized for discovery or for the amazing achievements of our students.

In still others, the name “Johns Hopkins” means lacrosse, Homewood Field and 44 men’s national championships. As with healing, discovery and achievement, that is a very special association and one that we are determined to preserve.

I wrote to you in early March to say that the changing face of intercollegiate athletics and the immense growth in the sport of lacrosse had made it necessary for Johns Hopkins to consider a step it had never taken in 130 years of competition: foregoing our independent status and affiliating with a conference for men’s lacrosse.

It would be a big step, a departure from history and Blue Jay tradition. We would never take such a step lightly. I announced the formation, therefore, of a special committee to examine all aspects of the issue and to provide me with an informed recommendation.

I also invited you to participate in the process by sharing your views with the committee. I am pleased to say that more than 300 of our students, alumni, faculty and staff did so.

In the two months since it was formed, the committee has worked diligently to understand the landscape and to consider whether we should make a change. Its members and staff, in addition to considering your feedback, have consulted with faculty athletics representatives at other universities, with officials of a number of conferences, and with traditional Johns Hopkins rivals. They have compiled and analyzed relevant statistical information; they have engaged in detailed discussions with Athletics Director Tom Calder and Coach Dave Pietramala, A&S ’90.

The committee’s unanimous conclusion, transmitted to me last week, is that Johns Hopkins and its men’s lacrosse student-athletes would best be served by our seeking affiliation for men’s lacrosse only with an NCAA Division I conference. That conclusion was based on committee members’ conviction that such a move will provide our university and history’s most-successful lacrosse program the best opportunity for continued leadership at the highest level of intercollegiate competition. It was based on their conviction that joining a Division I conference for men’s lacrosse is the best course for our athletes, our program and our university, and that it can be done without compromise to our academic integrity or athletic traditions.

I agree with the committee’s analysis and have accepted its recommendations. Tom Calder and Dave Pietramala are also in agreement. Together, we intend to pursue an affiliation. As I mentioned in my March message, there already have been expressions of interest. I will report to you when there is a conclusion to these discussions.

The special committee’s report is available online. To be clear, we intend, as previously announced, to compete as a Division I independent in women’s lacrosse. We remain deeply and philosophically committed to continued participation in NCAA Division III competition in all other sports.

The members of the special committee have invested a great deal of time and energy and done a wonderful job. On behalf of the entire university community, I want to express my most sincere appreciation to all the members, and especially to co-chairs Jerry Schnydman, A&S ’67, and Chris Watson, A&S ’05.

Sincerely,

Ronald J. Daniels

It’s a parent’s worst nightmare: a young child is accidentally left in a locked car on a warm and sunny day. The closed windows turn the car into a greenhouse, and the child dies of heatstroke.

In a key first step toward preventing such tragedies, three undergraduate engineering students at Johns Hopkins have turned technology from a popular video game player into a detector for children left behind in dangerously overheated vehicles. The young inventors tinkered with parts from a Kinect motion-sensing device, normally used with the Xbox 360 game console, and came up with the heart of a new system aimed at “seeing” children left in locked cars and summoning help.

The student inventors unveiled their child detection prototype at a recent senior design showcase. From left are Anshul Mehra, Yejin Kim and Jeffrey Kamei; at the far right is their faculty sponsor, Eileen McDonald of the the Johns Hopkins Center for Injury Research and Policy. Photo by Norman Barker/homewoodphoto.jhu.edu

Although the project needs further work, the students’ sponsor said their proof-of-concept prototype is a significant move toward reducing the number of children lost in locked-car incidents. “These are preventable deaths that deserve our attention,” said Eileen McDonald, a faculty member in the Johns Hopkins Center for Injury Research and Policy, part of the Bloomberg School of Public Health. “The students showed that they could detect even the tiniest movements associated with a child left in the backseat of a car. We don’t have a perfect model yet, but we’re hoping another group will pick up where they left off and bring it closer to becoming a commercial product.”

The project was developed during a two-semester mechanical engineering senior design course offered by the university’s Whiting School of Engineering. Teams of three or four undergraduates were each given a small budget to design and build a prototype requested by a sponsoring business or organization. This year’s results were unveiled recently at a showcase conducted shortly before the students were scheduled to graduate.

McDonald and her center challenged one of these teams to address a public health problem documented in a 2012 study released by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. According to the report, 527 heatstroke-related deaths involving children left in cars had been recorded in the United States since 1998, or an average of 38 such deaths annually. The study, conducted by researchers at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, cited the circumstances surrounding these deaths: in 51 percent of the cases, the caregivers had forgotten the children were in the car; in 30 percent of the cases, the children were playing in an unattended vehicle; and in 17 percent of the cases, an adult intentionally left the child in the vehicle. (The remaining 2 percent did not fit within these categories, or the circumstances were unknown.)

The NHTSA report also included testing results of several safety devices already being sold to alert parents that a baby or toddler has been left in the vehicle. The report stated that “the devices were inconsistent and unreliable.”

McDonald asked Johns Hopkins mechanical engineering students Jeffrey Kamei, Yejin Kim and Anshul Mehra to come up with a better way to prevent these deaths. She also encouraged them to produce a passive protection system that would operate without requiring the driver to flip a switch or hook a wristband to the child to activate it.

During brainstorming sessions last fall, the students hit on the idea of adapting the Kinect video game technology. The device uses an infrared camera and projector to sense the movements of a game player and incorporates these motions into what is happening on the video screen. The students thought the same technology could sense even the most subtle movements of a baby sleeping in a rear car-seat.

An important advantage of using infrared technology, the students said, was that it cannot penetrate the vehicle’s glass windows, so it is unlikely that a movement outside the car, such as a pedestrian or a passing vehicle, could accidentally trigger the motion detector. But inside a car, early tests indicated the sensor should be able to quickly pick up a baby or toddler who is trapped or sleeping inside.

Although the largest hurdle has been cleared, additional work must be done to complete and test the system before it can become a commercial product. First, researchers will either have to license Microsoft’s Kinect technology or develop other equipment that works in a similar way. Also on the drawing board are several options for the system to summon help when a trapped child is detected. These could include a loud alarm or an automated call to police or firefighters, or to a car security service such as OnStar.

As they prepared for graduation, the student inventors said they had gained valuable real-world engineering experience while launching a project that could have significant public health value.

When the project opportunities were posted last fall, “this was my first choice,” said Mehra, who lives in Baltimore. “Within my culture in India, family is very important. This was a project that could help prevent a big family tragedy.”

“At first it was just a cool idea, and then it evolved,” said Kamei, who is from Downey, Calif., a suburb of Los Angeles. “I think it definitely has a lot of potential.”

“I’m glad we were able to build something that could protect babies,” added Kim, a citizen of South Korea who completed her high school studies in Texas.

Notes: The 2012 NHTSA report on heatstroke and children in parked vehicles can be viewed at: http://www.nhtsa.gov/DOT/NHTSA/NVS/811632.pdf‎ . Updated statistics on heatstroke deaths of children in vehicles may be viewed on a website maintained by San Francisco State University researcher Jan Null: http://www.ggweather.com/heat/ .

Related links:

Department of Mechanical Engineering: http://www.me.jhu.edu/
Whiting School of Engineering: http://engineering.jhu.edu
Johns Hopkins Center for Injury Research and Policy: http://www.jhsph.edu/injurycenter

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Johns Hopkins University news releases can be found on the World Wide Web at http://www.jhu.edu/news_info/news/ Information on automatic E-mail delivery of science and medical news releases is available at the same address.

Alfredo Quiñones-Hinojosa, a renowned neuroscientist and neurosurgeon at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, is the featured speaker at this year’s university-wide commencement ceremony for graduates from all divisions and campuses of The Johns Hopkins University.

The event will take place, rain or shine, from 8:40 a.m. to approximately noon on Thursday, May 23, on Homewood Field, the stadium on the northern end of the university’s Homewood campus at 3400 N. Charles St. in Baltimore. There will be a press section on the playing surface of Homewood Field. Identification is required; prior notification of intention to cover the ceremony is preferred. See above for contact information.

The ceremony will feature remarks from President Ronald J. Daniels and a speech by Quiñones-Hinojosa, the conferring of all degrees, and the bestowing of honorary degrees. In addition, all undergraduate students as well as doctoral students in attendance will have their names announced as they file on stage to have their degrees recognized. The majority of students will receive their diplomas following the event; others will receive them at separate diploma ceremonies at their respective schools.


Prior to the ceremony, the undergraduates from the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, the Whiting School of Engineering, the School of Nursing and the Peabody Institute will gather on the Keyser Quadrangle and walk through campus, passing through the Freshman Quad, where their academic journey started. All other graduates will enter from the Athletic Center. Following the ceremony, the newly minted alumni and their families will be invited to a reception on the Keyser Quadrangle.

The university is also once again putting its “green” principles into practice at commencement to create a zero-waste ceremony through several measures, including caps and gowns made from 100 percent recyclable materials, and reusable stage decorations. The commencement program will be printed on paper that has been certified by the Forest Stewardship Council. The reception will feature local caterers specializing in green practices, and biodegradable dinnerware and food scraps will be composted.

This year’s honorary degree recipients are Eddie Brown, chairman and chief executive officer and founder of Brown Capital in Glen Arm, Md., and his wife C. Sylvia Brown, community philanthropist and higher education leader; Vernon Mountcastle, professor emeritus of neuroscience at Johns Hopkins; and Nelson Sewankambo, an internationally recognized medical researcher and educator from Kampala, Uganda.

Noteworthy speakers at other Johns Hopkins commencement-related events – at various times and locations from Tuesday, May 21 through Friday, May 24 – include Wes Moore, best-selling author and JHU alumnus, who will speak to the School of Education; Pete Seeger, American folk singer and songwriter, who will speak to graduates of the Peabody Institute; Christiane Amanpour, CNN’s chief international correspondent, who will speak to graduates of the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies; and Wesley G. Bush, CEO and president, Northrop Grumman, who will speak to graduates of the Carey Business School.
 

About the Graduating Class (as of May 13)

The total number of earned degrees, certificates and diplomas awarded is expected to be about 7,185, including 1,758 bachelor degrees (1,332 of which to be conferred upon seniors graduating from the schools of Arts and Sciences and Engineering at the Homewood campus) and 5,424  graduate degrees from across the university: 1,295 from the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences; 1,076 from the Whiting School of Engineering; 547 from the Carey Business School; 579 from the School of Education; 203 from the Peabody Institute; 107 from the School of Nursing; 479  from the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS); 279 from the School of Medicine; and 859 from the Bloomberg School of Public Health.

About the Ceremonies

The university as a whole and its nine academic divisions will hold the following commencement events, listed by date:

Bloomberg School of Public Health

Tuesday, May 21, 9 a.m., Meyerhoff Symphony Hall, Cathedral and Preston streets

Speaker: Nelson Sewankambo, a Ugandan doctor and medical researcher

Carey Business School

Tuesday, May 21, 4 p.m., Meyerhoff Symphony Hall

Speaker: Wesley G. Bush, CEO and president, Northrop Grumman

Whiting School of Engineering Graduate Ceremony

Wednesday, May 22, 7 p.m., Homewood Field, Homewood campus.

Speaker: Kenneth W. DeFontes Jr., president and CEO, Baltimore Gas and Electric Company

University-wide Commencement Ceremony and Arts and Sciences/Engineering Undergraduate Diploma Ceremony

Thursday, May 23, from 8:40 a.m. to approximately noon, Homewood Field

Speaker: Dr. Alfredo Quiñones-Hinojosa, a renowned neuroscientist and neurosurgeon at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

School of Medicine Diploma Award Ceremony

Thursday, May 23, 2:30 p.m., Meyerhoff Symphony Hall

Speaker: Jon R. Lorsch, PhD, Professor of Biophysics and Biophysical Chemistry

Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies Diploma Award Ceremony

Thursday, May 23, 3 p.m., DAR Constitution Hall, Constitution Hall, 18th and D Streets, N.W., Washington, D.C.

Speaker: Christiane Amanpour, CNN’s chief international correspondent

School of Nursing Diploma and Award Ceremony

Thursday, May 23, 3 p.m., France Merrick Performing Arts Center (Hippodrome Theatre), 12 North Eutaw St.

Speaker: Martha N. Hill, dean of The Johns Hopkins School of Nursing, who is stepping down at the end of the academic year.

The Peabody Institute Diploma Award Ceremony

Thursday, May 23, 7:30 p.m., Friedberg Concert Hall, Peabody Institute, 1 E. Mount Vernon Place.

Speaker: Pete Seeger, American folk singer and songwriter, who will receive the George Peabody Medal for Outstanding Contributions to Music in America.

School of Education Diploma Award Ceremony

Thursday, May 23, 7:30 p.m., Homewood Field, Homewood campus.

Speaker: Wes Moore, best-selling author and JHU alumnus

Zanvyl Krieger School of Arts and Sciences Master’s Diploma Award Ceremony

Friday, May 24, 10 a.m., Homewood Field, Homewood campus.

Speaker: John M. Bridgeland, president and CEO of Civic Enterprises

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Johns Hopkins University news releases can be found on the World Wide Web at http://releases.jhu.edu/

Information on automatic E-mail delivery of science and medical news releases is available at the same address.

April 25, 2013
Media Contact: Phil Sneiderman
Office: (443) 287-9960
Cell: (410) 299-7462
prs@jhu.edu

WHEN: 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday, April 27. Best times to videotape or photograph the robots are from 11:45 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. and from 2:45 p.m. to 3:45 p.m.

WHERE: Charles Commons Conference Center, 33^rd and North Charles streets, The Johns Hopkins University Homewood campus in Baltimore. Please use the 33^rd street entrance.

WHO: Baltimore area high school and middle school students will enter their robots in the Johns Hopkins Robo-Challenge 2013.

WHAT: More than a dozen student teams from the Baltimore area will bring small autonomous robots to compete in various events during the competition, organized by Johns Hopkins graduate students from the university’s Laboratory for Computational Sensing and Robotics. Contest events include slalom racing, mystery maze navigation, “tumor” detection, robot dancing and innovative use.

DETAILS: The Petite Slalom is a course in which robots travel from the starting point to the finish line while traveling through “gates.” In Mystery Maze, teams will arrive at the competition with no knowledge of what the course will be. The route will be some type of blind course that requires robotic sensors to maneuver. Also, teams will design an innovative and practical use for the Basic Stamp Board of Education kit (Boebot), or any other robotic kits in the Innovative Use competition. In the Search and Destroy event, teams will design and program their Boebots to find all the “tumors” (large white circles) at various unknown locations. In the Robot Dance contest, teams will program an original dance routine for their robot. The day will also include brief lectures from a prominent Johns Hopkins robotics researcher and current engineering college students. It will conclude with a tour of the state-of-the art laboratory for computational sensing and robotics. More information about the competition and rules are at https://www.lcsr.jhu.edu/Education/CISSRS/JHRC2013 .

WHY: The event’s goal is to stir the interest of middle and high school students in science and technology. This event is sponsored by the Johns Hopkins Alumni Association, Johns Hopkins Graduate Representative Organization, and the Laboratory for Computational Sensing and Robotics.

Media Contact for the Event: The event supervisor, Xingchi He, can be reached by email at jhurobocomp@gmail.com or by cell phone at 443-691-6739.

Some area schools that are participating in the Johns Hopkins Robo-Challenge 2013:

Saint Anselm’s Abbey
MMI Prep School
Garrison Forrest School
Northeast Middle School
MCEA Education Association
Stemmers Run Middle School
Loyola Blakefield
Burleigh Manor Middle School
Baltimore IT Academy
Richard Montgomery High School
Hope Chinese Middle School
Susquenita High School
Friends School of Baltimore

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Johns Hopkins University news releases can be found on the World Wide Web at http://www.jhu.edu/news_info/news/. Information on automatic E-mail delivery of science and medical news releases is available at the same address.

The Johns Hopkins University and Waverly Elementary/Middle School have partnered to teach young students about the benefits of healthy eating and regular exercise through a program called Food as Medicine. A special program event, the Safari of Health Fair, will take place from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Friday, April 26 at the school on 701 E. 34^th St. Baltimore, MD 21218.

Food as Medicine is directed by the Maryland-D.C. Campus Compact AmeriCorps VISTA at the university’s Center for Social Concern. As the service-learning component of the program, the fair will give students in K-8 the opportunity to experience hands-on education about nutrition, health and fitness, as well as proper dental hygiene. Led by the Waverly sixth grade class, the health fair will give the older students a chance to influence their younger peers by helping them think critically about their food choices and the importance of exercise as they key to leading healthy lives.

The Food as Medicine program comes at an ideal time for Waverly Elementary/Middle School, which does not have a physical education or health teacher. In addition to the health fair, Johns Hopkins undergraduates apply their classroom knowledge of public health and science to the program by providing Waverly students with year-round weekly nutrition and fitness workshops.

Food as Medicine, which was first introduced to students last October, has become a hit at Waverly Elementary/Middle School. With Johns Hopkins undergraduates working with them, many of the young students have already started making healthy food choices such as eating more fresh fruits and less salt and sugar. The students have also established a club called the Healthy Society. “I’m going to start eating more fruit and the right amount of vitamins to keep my body powered and going,” one Waverly student said.

The Johns Hopkins and Waverly Elementary/Middle School partnership comes at an ideal time for the secondary school, which will move into a new $25 million building across the street from its current location. Organizers and participants say the fair and Food as Medicine program will help make up for the lack of a physical education program and health teacher at the elementary/middle school as it prepares for its move and a new beginning.

For more information about the Health Fair and Food as Medicine, please contact Leanne Demery at 410-516-4843 or 857-656-6715.

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Johns Hopkins University news releases can be found on the World Wide Web at http://releases.jhu.edu/
Information on automatic E-mail delivery of science and medical news releases is available at the same address.

April 16, 2013
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MEDIA CONTACT: Amy Lunday
Office: 443-287-9960
Cell: 410-804-2551
acl@jhu.edu

Three undergraduate researchers at The Johns Hopkins University are among the 271 students recently awarded Goldwater Scholarships for the 2013-2014 academic year. The one- and two-year funding the three Johns Hopkins students receive will help further their investigations in molecular dynamics, the biomedical science of disease, and developing a computational tool to help surgeons treat epilepsy.

The merit-based scholarships cover the cost of tuition, fees, books, and room and board up to a maximum of $7,500 per year. The Goldwater Foundation, which grants the scholarships, is a federally endowed agency established in 1986. The program honoring the late Sen. Barry M. Goldwater was designed to foster and encourage outstanding students to pursue careers in the fields of mathematics, the natural sciences and engineering. The Goldwater Scholarship is the premier undergraduate award of its type in these fields. The foundation has awarded 6,550 scholarships worth approximately $40 million since the first awards were given out in 1989.

The three Johns Hopkins Goldwater Scholars are:

Stephen Filippone is a junior majoring in materials science and engineering in the Whiting School of Engineering. Filippone’s Goldwater funding will support his research project performing molecular dynamics simulations on polymer (amorphous) systems to investigate void growth morphology in the lab of Michael Falk, an associate professor of materials science and engineering. Polymers have applications in every technology from medicine to electronics. By better understanding the physics of their deformation we can control their properties and make better devices. Filippone’s past research projects include summers at Vanderbilt and Northwestern universities, studying ways to increase the flexural strength of cement to reduce the amount of reinforcement needed in construction, and studying the performance of graphene capacitors over large-area graphene. He hopes to pursue a doctorate in materials science and engineering. Filippone is from Los Fresnos, Texas.

Peter Kalugin, is a sophomore majoring in both molecular and cellular biology and mathematics in the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences. His research training in the cell biology of medical problems includes work in labs studying diabetes and polycystic kidney disease. During the 2012-13 academic year, Kalugin has been studying at the University of Oxford through the Hopkins St. Anne’s, Oxford Pre-Med Programs, which allows several sophomores and juniors planning a career in medicine to spend a year abroad at St. Anne’s College. Upon his return to Johns Hopkins in the fall, he will conduct research in the lab of Takanari Inoue, an assistant professor in the Department of Cell Biology at the School of Medicine. Kalugin aspires to be a physician-scientist to continue his research in biomedical science. He is originally from Russia, and currently lives in Albuquerque, N.M.

Sandya Subramanian, a junior majoring in biomedical engineering and applied math in the Whiting School. Her Goldwater funding will support her research with Sridevi Sarma, an assistant professor of biomedical engineering, to design a computational tool to assist clinicians in identifying the epileptogenic zone in patients with medically refractory epilepsy, or epilepsy that doesn’t respond to medication. The team has applied for a provisional patent for the device for use in guiding surgical interventions. Subramanian plans to pursue a doctorate in biomedical engineering, with a focus on computational and analytic methods to solve biomedical problems. She is from Grand Rapids, Mich.

The Goldwater Scholars were selected on the basis of academic merit from a field of 1,107 mathematics, science, and engineering students who were nominated by the faculties of colleges and universities nationwide. One hundred seventy-six of the Scholars are men, 95 are women, and most intend to obtain a PhD.

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Johns Hopkins University news releases can be found on the World Wide Web at http://releases.jhu.edu/
Information on automatic E-mail delivery of science and medical news releases is available at the same address.

]]> http://releases.jhu.edu/2013/04/16/goldwater-scholarships/feed/ 0 http://releases.jhu.edu/2013/04/16/shollenberger/ http://releases.jhu.edu/2013/04/16/shollenberger/#comments Tue, 16 Apr 2013 16:30:14 +0000 Dennis O'Shea http://releases.jhu.edu/?p=8837 THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
OFFICE OF COMMUNICATIONS
901 S. Bond Street, Suite 540
Baltimore, MD 21231
Phone:  443-287-9960 / Fax: 443-287-9920

April 16, 2013
CONTACT: Dennis O’Shea
dro@jhu.edu

Kevin G. Shollenberger, since 2008 the chief student affairs officer for undergraduates at Columbia University, has been appointed vice provost for student affairs at The Johns Hopkins University.

He will manage academic services and residential, extracurricular and other non-academic aspects of life for more than 8,000 undergraduate and graduate students at the university’s Homewood campus in northern Baltimore.

Kevin G. Shollenberger

Shollenberger, who will join Johns Hopkins on July 1, has served in leadership roles at Columbia since 1999. For the past five years, he has been dean of student affairs for Columbia College and the university’s School of Engineering and Applied Science. He is also Columbia’s associate vice president for undergraduate student life.

“Kevin is passionate about students,” said Jonathan A. Bagger, interim provost and senior vice president for academic affairs at Johns Hopkins. “He has a strong record, at Columbia and in previous positions, of building community, engaging students, managing initiatives and balancing priorities.”

At Johns Hopkins, Shollenberger will oversee an organization that also includes the deans of student life and academic services. Their staffs handle registration; career advising; housing and dining; student activities; athletics and recreation; health, wellness and counseling; student jobs; student accounts; and other student-related matters for the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences and the Whiting School of Engineering.

The vice provost also convenes student affairs leaders from the university’s seven other schools to coordinate efforts and share best practices.

“I am honored to join the Johns Hopkins community and thrilled to soon call Baltimore my home,” Shollenberger said. “In partnership with colleagues in the Office of Student Affairs, the Whiting and Krieger schools and the student and alumni communities, I look forward to making a positive impact on the lives of students at Johns Hopkins.”

Before becoming dean at Columbia, Shollenberger was senior associate dean for student affairs, responsible for student development and residential life, and executive director for student development and activities.

He previously supported 60 campuses while directing campus programs for the National Coalition Building Institute, a non-profit leadership training organization working against racism, prejudice and discrimination. He began his professional career at American University and the University of Hawaii at Manoa.

Shollenberger graduated in 1988 from what is now Arcadia University and in 1989 earned a Master of Education degree in higher education student development from American. He is an active member of the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators and was awarded a 2013 Scott Goodnight Award for outstanding service as a dean.

He succeeds Sarah B. Steinberg, who is now chief executive officer of Shalom Learning.

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April 16, 2013
Media Contact: Phil Sneiderman
Office: (443) 287-9960
Cell: (410) 299-7462
prs@jhu.edu

Could algae that feast on wastewater produce clean bio-fuels and a healthful supply of fish food? Can impoverished African community gardeners learn to use and maintain a simple centuries-old, non-electric water pump to grow more vegetables?

Two Johns Hopkins student teams are working hard to move these “green” ideas off the drawing board and into the real world. Both teams will showcase their progress at the 2013 National Sustainable Design Expo, scheduled April 18 and 19, in Washington, D.C. The event, which will be open to the public on the National Mall, is sponsored by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which provided $15,000 initial grants to each of the Johns Hopkins teams and to more than 40 other students groups that will also participate.

During the Expo, student teams will compete for follow-up grants of up to $90,000 to bring their concepts closer to real-world applications. The awards are part of an EPA program called P3: People, Prosperity and Planet Student Design Competition for Sustainability.

Integration of Waste Treatment with Algal Cultivation for Sustainable Aquaculture Feed and Renewable Biofuel

One of the Johns Hopkins student projects focuses on growing large masses of algae to address three sustainability issues: pollution control, the limited supply of fossil fuels and production of healthy food. This team, dubbed AlgaFuture, is composed of undergraduates and graduate students from the departments of Geography and Environmental Engineering and Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. Their goal is to deploy algae at wastewater treatment facilities to feed on hard-to-remove pollutants such as nitrogen and phosphorus, which are found in human and animal waste and in agricultural runoff containing fertilizer. If algae can flourish while dining on these pollutants, the plant-like organisms could then be used to produce renewable bio-fuels or food for fish farms.

But the process is not as simple as it sounds. “Wastewater can contain pathogens and dangerous metals like mercury, chromium and arsenic,” said Pavlo Bohutskyi, an environmental engineering doctoral student and leader of this team. “If algae grow in these materials and then are eaten by fish, is it safe for us to eat these fish?”

At the same time, the pathogens in wastewater, such as viruses, fungi and bacteria, could destroy the algae themselves and thwart the plans to produce biofuels and fish food. With an initial EPA grant, the student team tested 20 species of algae. “We found two strains that can grow well alongside pathogens and one that is already present in wastewater samples,” Bohutskyi said.

If the team receives one of the additional EPA grants, he said, the students plan to do further studies to see whether fish food or biofuel production is the most economically viable use for algae grown in wastewater. Their faculty advisers are Edward Bouwer, professor and chair of the Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering, and Michael Betenbaugh, professor in the Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering. Both departments are within the university’s Whiting School of Engineering.

The other Johns Hopkins team aims to improve the irrigation of vegetable gardens that provide nutrition and income for families in remote rural communities in South Africa. In these areas, women and children often spend hours each day hauling heavy containers of water from the local stream for drinking and to water crop-growing sites up to a half-mile away.

Alcock Ram Pump Diagram

Since 2006, students with the Johns Hopkins chapter of Engineers Without Borders-USA (EWB-USA) have journeyed to Africa to help install low-cost ram pumps, devices that date back to the 1700s and do not require electricity or fuel. Instead, they use the kinetic energy of flowing stream water to power the lifting of a fraction of this water to a higher elevation. The process eliminates current practices of hand-carrying water and provides much needed irrigation water for the cultivation of winter vegetables. In an additional effort aimed at sustaining the benefits from the EWB-USA effort, a team of undergraduate and graduate environmental engineering students obtained an initial EPA grant to develop a new understanding of pump performance and repair and to help plan sustainable “service centers.” The goal is to enable the community gardeners to maintain and repair their pumps. The focus is on a particularly inexpensive, appropriate and robust type of ram pump designed by a South African named David Alcock.

“We’re working on detailed descriptions of the pump parts and how the pump can be assembled and how it can operate most efficiently,” said Emily Prosser, an undergraduate environmental engineering student who is helping to lead the team. Dano Wilusz, a graduate student member, has been assisting with the plans for the project’s next phase. He added, “We’ve also been working with the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School and South African partners to plan different types of government-supported service centers that could provide advice, spare parts and other help to the community in running these irrigation systems. It’s important because the water allows the farmers to grow more vegetables during dry seasons for their own use and for sale to others.”

If this team is awarded one of the EPA’s follow-up grants, the funds will be used to help open and evaluate two of the proposed service centers in South Africa. The students’ long-range goal is to create a model sustainability program that could be used to enable farmers and community gardeners in other regions to run their own ram pump irrigations systems without relying on outside assistance groups.

The faculty adviser to the student ram pump team is William Ball, a professor in the Department of Geography and Environmental Engineering. A co-investigator for Phase II is Dipankar Chakravarti, a Johns Hopkins Carey Business School professor who will advise a business school graduate student assigned to assist with the set-up and evaluation of the service centers.

Both Johns Hopkins student teams will staff tables and be available to talk about their projects at the EPA’s National Sustainable on Design Expo, which runs from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Thursday, April 18, and from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Friday, April 19. The event will be located on the National Mall, between 13^th and 14^th streets, in Washington D.C.

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Johns Hopkins University news releases can be found on the World Wide Web at http://www.jhu.edu/news_info/news/ Information on automatic E-mail delivery of science and medical news releases is available at the same address.

The Innovation for Humanity course of the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School’s Global MBA program is being honored in the inaugural Green Blue Jay Awards presented by the Johns Hopkins University Office of Sustainability.

I4H, as the course is familiarly known, has been chosen to receive the By the Book Award “for its creativity and innovation in involving Carey Business School students in hands-on learning opportunities that emphasize humanity and social responsibility,” said Office of Sustainability Director Davis Bookhart.

In the course, students are immersed for three weeks during the January intersession in an unfamiliar culture with its attendant business challenges and opportunities. Working with local entrepreneurs and community stakeholder sponsors, the students tackle indigenous business problems, and are tasked to think innovatively and act collaboratively in seeking solutions. One I4H team worked this past January, for example, at a health clinic in Quito, Ecuador, and developed multiple recommendations to improve the facility’s admission and discharge processes.

The three-week immersion is preceded by a semester of preparation in which students learn entrepreneurship principles and relevant aspects of the country and business sector in which they will work. They also develop a project work plan that they adapt and execute during the on-site work.

Since the Global MBA program was introduced in fall 2010, about 250 Carey students have formed teams to work on a total of nearly 60 Innovation for Humanity projects that have focused on such domains as health care, agriculture, energy use, and water conservation in diverse global locations such as Ecuador, India, Peru, Rwanda, and the United States. I4H is a required 3-credit course in the first year of Carey’s Global MBA program.

Dipankar Chakravarti, Carey Business School

Dipankar Chakravarti, the Carey Business School marketing professor who directs the 14H course, says it was designed “to provide a transformational experience for our students. They get to see how entrepreneurs can encounter all kinds of difficulties, especially in an emerging economy, and still find ways to make meaningful contributions. In a challenging environment that really puts them to the test, the students learn to use many of the business skills they’ve acquired in their classes and the value of teamwork and collaboration.”

The Green Blue Jay Awards recognize individuals in the Johns Hopkins community who exemplify sustainability, in their ideals and actions, on the university’s campuses. The awards will be presented at noon on Earth Day, April 22, 2013, on the Homewood campus in Baltimore.

“My colleagues and I are delighted and humbled to receive this recognition,” Chakravarti said. “The Innovation for Humanity program and the ideals it embodies are very dear and close to our hearts. There are many faculty and staff who give this program their unstinting support and contribute to its success. We are obviously very grateful to our students whose incredible enthusiasm and commitment makes it possible to implement this program.”

Carey professors John Baker, James Calvin, Phillip Phan, Bonnie Robeson and Lindsay Thompson serve as faculty site directors for Innovation for Humanity. Carey staff member Daniel Sheats, program manager for I4H, handles the complex arrangements made with sponsoring organizations in the various countries.

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Johns Hopkins University news releases can be found on the World Wide Web at http://releases.jhu.edu/
Information on automatic E-mail delivery of science and medical news releases is available at the same address.

April 11, 2013
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MEDIA CONTACT: Amy Lunday
Office: 443-287-9960
Cell: 410-804-2551
acl@jhu.edu

Dr. Alfredo Quiñones-Hinojosa

Dr. Alfredo Quiñones-Hinojosa, a renowned neuroscientist and neurosurgeon at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, will be the featured speaker at the university’s Thursday, May 23, commencement ceremony.

He will address graduates from all Johns Hopkins schools at the morning university-wide event at the Homewood campus at which their degrees are officially conferred. Many of the graduates will actually receive their diplomas at separate school ceremonies at campuses and locations throughout the Baltimore-Washington area.

“Dr. Q” is known for his cutting-edge cancer research and his easygoing, comforting manner with patients, as well as his role in the Peabody Award-winning ABC News documentary series “Hopkins,” which followed several doctors and nurses as they treated patients at The Johns Hopkins Hospital. How Quiñones-Hinojosa got to Johns Hopkins – a story of perseverance against the odds – is sure to be a source of inspiration for the class of 2013.

Quiñones-Hinojosa’s path to becoming a physician started in an unlikely place: a cotton field. He came to the United States in 1987 from his native Mexico at the age of 19, penniless and unable to speak English. Driven to have a better life than the one he would have had in Mexico, Quiñones-Hinojosa took jobs picking cotton, painting and welding to pay for his tuition at San Joaquin Delta Community College in Stockton, Calif. He studied English and tutored other Spanish speakers in math and science. Quiñones-Hinojosa transferred to the University of California, Berkeley, where he earned his bachelor’s degree in psychology with high honors in 1994. Five years later, he earned his medical degree with honors from Harvard Medical School.

After Harvard, Quiñones-Hinojosa attended the University of California, San Francisco, to train in both general surgery and neurosurgery, and to conduct clinical research in epidemiology and biostatistics. He also earned a postdoctoral fellowship from the National Institutes of Health to study developmental and stem cell biology. Then in 2005, Quiñones-Hinojosa came to Johns Hopkins, where he became a faculty member and surgeon specializing in brain cancer and pituitary tumors. Quiñones-Hinojosa’s titles include professor of neurological surgery, oncology, neuroscience, and cellular and molecular medicine, director of the brain tumor surgery program at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, and director of the pituitary surgery program at The Johns Hopkins Hospital.

In addition to teaching and treating patients, Quiñones-Hinojosa conducts brain cancer research sponsored by the NIH, focusing on stem cells located in the brain. He theorizes these cells could be targeted to halt the spread of cancerous cells more effectively and naturally than current surgery techniques or radiation treatments.

Quiñones-Hinojosa has received many awards and accolades during the course of his career, including being named a “Healthcare Hero” by the Maryland Daily Record and one of PopSci’s “Brilliant 10″ in 2007. Quiñones-Hinojosa frequently leads medical mission trips to Mexico, including a trip planned for this summer. An avid runner, Dr. Q aims to inspire his patients by participating in many races each year.

A complete bio is available at http://doctorqmd.com/. For more information about Quiñones-Hinojosa’s speech and about commencement ceremonies at Johns Hopkins, please contact Amy Lunday at 443-287-9960 or acl@jhu.edu. Information on speakers at diploma ceremonies at the various Johns Hopkins schools is at http://web.jhu.edu/commencement/schools.html.

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Johns Hopkins University news releases can be found on the World Wide Web at http://releases.jhu.edu/
Information on automatic E-mail delivery of science and medical news releases is available at the same address.

]]> http://releases.jhu.edu/2013/04/11/dr-alfredo-quinones-hinojosa-to-speak-at-johns-hopkins-commencement-ceremony/feed/ 0 http://releases.jhu.edu/2013/04/09/media-advisory-student-teams-to-compete-for-johns-hopkins-business-plan-prize-money-on-april-12/ http://releases.jhu.edu/2013/04/09/media-advisory-student-teams-to-compete-for-johns-hopkins-business-plan-prize-money-on-april-12/#comments Tue, 09 Apr 2013 15:31:31 +0000 phil http://releases.jhu.edu/?p=8764 April 9, 2013
Media Contact: Phil Sneiderman
Office: (443) 287-9960
Cell: (410) 299-7462
prs@jhu.edu

WHEN: Johns Hopkins Business Plan Competition presentations and judging will take place from 1:30 to 5 p.m. on Friday, April 12. Winners will be announced during a dinner and awards ceremony from 5 to 7 p.m., featuring guest speakers Matthew Daimler and Susan Daimler. Matthew Daimler is the CEO/founder of Buyfolio.com, a collaborative platform for real estate agents and homebuyers that was acquired by Zillow in October 2012. Susan Daimler is the co-founder of Buyfolio.com. She is continuing her work on the Buyfolio product as the director of partner relations at Zillow and the general manager of Zillow NYC.

WHERE: Hodson Hall at The Johns Hopkins University’s Homewood campus, 3400 N. Charles St., Baltimore. Directions to event rooms will be provided in the main lobby. The business plan presentations are open to the general public. The dinner/awards ceremony is open only to invited guests and members of the news media.

WHO: Twenty-four finalist teams will present their business plans to judges in three categories: medical technologies and life sciences, general business and social enterprise. Each team is composed of two to ten undergraduates, graduate students or post-doctoral fellows who have devised a product or service they propose to sell. The finalist teams come from seven Johns Hopkins University divisions: The Whiting School of Engineering, the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, the Carey Business School, the School of Medicine, the Bloomberg School of Public Health, the School of Education and the Nitze School of Advanced International Studies.

WHAT: The business plans will include information on the need for a product or service, the range of potential customers, competition in the marketplace and how the company will be financed and will ultimately turn a profit. On Friday afternoon, each team will have about 15 minutes to present oral and PowerPoint summaries of their business plans and to answer questions from the judges.

PRIZES: In each category, the winning team will receive $6,000; second place, $4,000; third place, $2,000; runners-up $250.

WHY: The goal is to provide a chance for students to organize and present their ideas in a business setting and to encourage students to apply their ideas, concepts and products to develop enterprises and career opportunities. The event is hosted by the Center for Leadership Education, based in the Whiting School of Engineering.

CONTACT FOR THE EVENT: Pam Arrington, senior academic program coordinator for the Center for Leadership Education. Her weekday office phone is (410) 516-6741. On the day of the event, her cell phone number is (410) 802-1822.

More information about the competition can be found at http://www.jhu.edu/bpc/.

The hashtag on Twitter for the Business Plan Competition is #jhuBizPlan .

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Johns Hopkins University news releases can be found on the World Wide Web at http://www.jhu.edu/news_info/news/. Information on automatic E-mail delivery of science and medical news releases is available at the same address.

April 5, 2013
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Dennis O’Shea
dro@jhu.edu
Cell: 410-499-7460

Johns Hopkins University President Ronald J. Daniels sent the following email message to students, faculty and staff today concerning the death in Afghanistan of university alumna and U.S. diplomat Anne Smedinghoff.

Dear Members of the Johns Hopkins Community,

There is extremely difficult news today. A recent member of our community, Anne Smedinghoff, a 2009 graduate of the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences and a U.S. diplomat, has been killed in Afghanistan.

Anne Smedinghoff ’09 (family photo via Chicago Tribune)

News reports say that Anne was killed Saturday in an attack by a suicide bomber as she and a group of other Americans were driving to donate textbooks for Afghan school students. She is reported to be the first U.S. diplomat killed since the attacks last year on U.S. consular facilities in Libya.

Anne, who was 25, joined the U.S. Foreign Service just after her Johns Hopkins graduation and, according to a statement released by her parents, “absolutely loved the work she was doing” in public diplomacy, engaged in direct outreach to the Afghan people. Her parents, Tom and Mary Beth, tell us that Anne “was always looking for opportunities to reach out and help to make a difference in the lives of those living in a country ravaged by war.”

What work could possibly be more important? What more could we possibly ask of a Johns Hopkins graduate than to risk everything to help those who have next to nothing?

Her selfless action for others was nothing new. One of our young trustees, Anne’s 2009 classmate Christopher Louie, says she was “a rock star.” He rode with her in an annual cross-country bicycle trip organized by Johns Hopkins students and alumni known as the 4K for Cancer. It raises money to support cancer patients and their families.

Anne majored in international studies and was a co-chair of the 2008 student-run Foreign Affairs Symposium, called “A Decade of Discussion.” It was an examination of changes and continuities in politics, economics, human rights, war and technology over the previous 10 years; one of the guest speakers was Kimberly Dozier, a CBS News correspondent wounded in Iraq.

Anne was also an active member of Kappa Alpha Theta and a founding member of the Johns Hopkins chapter of Rho Lambda, the national sorority leadership recognition society. She was also elected to the Order of Omega, a national fraternity and sorority leadership honor society.

Anne’s passing brings to mind war-related deaths of three other young Johns Hopkins community members in recent years. Political science graduate student Nicole Suveges, who was also a civilian Army contractor working in Iraq while doing research for her dissertation, was one of four Americans and seven others killed in an explosion in Baghdad in June 2008. In the spring of 2007, Lt. Colby Umbrell ’04 and Capt. Jonathan Grassbaugh ’03, both of the U.S. Army, were killed in action in Iraq.

Secretary of State John Kerry said today that he met Anne Smedinghoff about two weeks ago when he was in Afghanistan. He called her “vivacious, smart, capable, chosen often by the ambassador there to be the lead person because of her capacity.”

Let us all keep in our hearts the friends and family of the three military members and one Defense Department civilian who were killed with Anne, and with the four other State Department staff members who were injured.

Katherine Newman, dean of the Krieger School, joins me in extending our deepest sympathies, and those of the entire Johns Hopkins community, to Anne’s parents and family and to her many friends, especially her Johns Hopkins friends. May they all be consoled by their memories of her vibrant, valuable, well-lived life and by our appreciation of the absolutely vital work she was doing when she died. As Dean Newman said today, Anne represented everything we believe in as a university and gave her life in service of peace.

We at Johns Hopkins are honored to have had Anne, however briefly, in our midst.

Sincerely,
Ronald J. Daniels

THE JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY
OFFICE OF COMMUNICATIONS
901 S. Bond Street, Suite 540
Baltimore, MD 21231
Phone: 443-287-9960 / Fax: 443-287-9920

April 5, 2013
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: Dennis O’Shea
dro@jhu.edu

Tuition for full-time liberal arts and engineering undergraduates at The Johns Hopkins University will increase 3.5 percent this fall, the smallest percentage increase in 39 years.

The increase, amounting to $1,540, is also the smallest in dollar terms in three years. It will bring 2013-2014 tuition to $45,470 for the more than 5,000 full-time undergraduates in the university’s Krieger School of Arts and Sciences and Whiting School of Engineering. Both schools are at the Homewood campus in north Baltimore.

Those two schools have now kept undergraduate tuition hikes below 4 percent for five straight years; those five years represent the university’s five smallest tuition increase percentages since the 1974-1975 academic year.

Room and board rates for a typical double room and “anytime” meal plan will climb only 3.3 percent this fall, to $13,832. That will bring the total of tuition, room and board to $59,302, up 3.5 percent from the current academic year.

While restraining its tuition increases, the university has consistently been building its financial aid budget, allowing students with modest financial resources to pay considerably less than the so-called “sticker price.” The university’s student aid resources were recently bolstered by a 10-year, $100 million commitment from philanthropist and New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, announced in January as part of a larger $350 million gift. Bloomberg is a 1964 Johns Hopkins engineering graduate.

Net cost for aided freshmen will again fall
The university’s average grant for freshmen entering this fall on financial aid — projected to be more than 43 percent of the class — is expected to be just under $38,000, up from $35,517 this academic year. When that is subtracted from the tuition, room and board, and personal expenses total of $62,652, the average out-of-pocket cost for freshmen on financial aid will be $22,864. Thanks to the increased aid budget, that out-of-pocket average is $444, or 1.9 percent, lower than the current academic year.

Tuition for other Johns Hopkins undergraduates
A 3.5 percent tuition increase will apply to the more than 300 undergraduate musicians studying full time at the university’s Peabody Conservatory in Baltimore’s Mount Vernon neighborhood. Their 2013-2014 tuition will be $39,796, up $1,346 from the current $38,450.

The School of Nursing, with 485 full-time undergrads studying in accelerated programs on the East Baltimore campus, will increase undergraduate tuition by 2.5 percent. Tuition for the 13-month accelerated track will be $67,344 for the entire program, an increase of $1,644 from the current $65,700.  For the new accelerated 17-month track program the tuition will be $67,765.

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Johns Hopkins University news releases can be found on the World Wide Web at http://releases.jhu.edu
Information on automatic E-mail delivery of science and medical news releases is available at the same address.